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How do you create strum patterns?

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(@playing_in_nwo)
New Member
Joined: 19 years ago
Posts: 1
Topic starter  

I am having trouble working out strum patterns for songs.
I may know what the chords are but can't decide what sounds right or best for any and I mean any song.
If the strum pattern is there I can work with it and make it sound ok but if I try to come up with it on my own its proving impossible at this time.
I have only been playing for 1 1/2 years.

I enjoy the easy songs listed on Guitarnoise and I am working on Wish you were here with much success.

If anybody has any ideas please send them my way.

Thanks


   
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(@artlutherie)
Noble Member
Joined: 20 years ago
Posts: 1157
 

Just listen and make them up. Eventually something will sound right!

Chuck Norris invented Kentucky Fried Chicken's famous secret recipe, with eleven herbs and spices. But nobody ever mentions the twelfth ingredient: Fear!
ChuckNorrisFactsdotCom


   
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(@just-a-learner)
Eminent Member
Joined: 19 years ago
Posts: 15
 

Just use a basic basic strum pattern which you think fits the song


   
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(@jonnyt)
Reputable Member
Joined: 22 years ago
Posts: 336
 

We all struggled with that early on. My guitar playing friends would say: "I'd don't know, I just go by feel." Which I use to hate that answer... but he was largely right.

Now that I'm teaching beginners I'm able to slow it down and work on the down-down, down-up-down, usually by shouting it out as we both play it together.

Some the EZ Play books have a list of strum patterns and a suggested strum pattern for each song in the book. You may want to start there.

But keep trying to play all kinds of stuff. If you can afford the $50, Transkriber software will take a wav file and slow it down without changing pitch. This too might help you hear the strum pattern and you can eliminate the lead vocal track in the middle to maybe hear the guitar better, just depends where the guitar is in the track.

When you listen to music, anytime you listen to music, try to pick out a single instrument and follow it, then pick another and do the same. This is ear training which will in turn train your ear to hear the rhythm guitar and thus the "strum pattern".

Hope these suggestions "sound" good!

E doesn't = MC2, E = Fb

Music "Theory"? "It's not just a theory, it's the way it is!"

Jonny T.


   
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(@brianf)
New Member
Joined: 19 years ago
Posts: 1
 

I think I'm in pretty much the same situation as playing_in_NWO, I've been "playing" for a litttle over a year and while i feel my picking is coming along fine it's actually getting embarassing just how bad i am at strumming. If i don't have a songs strumming pattern spelled out for me I just won't be able to figure it out. Fortunately this site, particularly this forum, has at least gotten me to make a real effort, by providing definite strumming patterns for loads of songs.

Which brings me to the real reason for posting this. Can someone please please please post a strumming pattern for The Who's Pinball Wizard. It's such a great song and the intro is ridiculously simple but when it breaks into the strumming my hand just seems to go to jelly. Please tell me someone can help. :(

ps sorry playing_in_NWO for kinda hijacking your cry for help for my own ends.


   
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 cnev
(@cnev)
Famed Member
Joined: 21 years ago
Posts: 4459
 

What you might want to try is just to strum using eigth notes, in other words 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +, with an upstroke on the +.

It may not be the exact pattern of the sonng but you can start modifying from there.

"It's all about stickin it to the man!"
It's a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll!


   
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(@maxrumble)
Honorable Member
Joined: 20 years ago
Posts: 441
 

My two cents

I have been playing for about 2 years and at about the one year or so mark strumming and strumming patterns just started to come. When listening to a song I thought that I could easily match the band. What I have come to find is that I am not always as correct as I thought but the strumming representation I decide on is usually complementary to the song. I could listen to the song over and over and make it exact but who really cares.
If you guys have been playing for a year you probably know a dozen or more songs with different stumming patterns. When trying to strum a new song you can try all of those patterns with the chord progression. I bet you will find, most of the time anyway, one will fit the song. Then you will likely slowly modify the song as you learn other songs.
I have learned several of the songs on this site and I think, if you do that, you will have absorbed enough of David's (I can't thank you enough) lessons to better understand strumming.

Then again maybe I am overcharging

Good luck

Cheers,

Max


   
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(@anonymous)
Illustrious Member
Joined: 17 years ago
Posts: 8184

   
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(@just-a-learner)
Eminent Member
Joined: 19 years ago
Posts: 15
 

Cheers everybody, thanks very much for the advice


   
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